


Stop Crying Your Heart Out

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Nip/Tuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-21
Updated: 2005-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:09:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1640624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Destina</p>
    </blockquote>





	Stop Crying Your Heart Out

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Destina

 

 

After the funeral, on the way to the reception at the offices of McNamara/Troy, Sean sits between Matt and Julia in the hearse that had previously carried Christian's body. He does not know where Annie is. Maybe she's with Julia's mother. Did she even come with them? He doesn't know where his daughter is but he's strangely unconcerned with this.

"I fucking look like Johnny Cash," Sean says, trying to laugh. "All this black." He pauses. "I can't believe I choked like that, standing there in front of all those people. What kind of a eulogy was that? Christian deserved better than that."

Matt reaches for Sean's hand and for a second Sean can see all the way back to Matt's childhood because Matt has always held Sean's hand like this. "You did good, Dad," Matt says reassuringly, as though he's the parent and Sean's the child, and Sean wants to cry, but he doesn't.

*

There are no patients scheduled for several days and if there were, Sean wouldn't want to face them. He imagines slicing into the tender underside of a woman's breast and suddenly her body morphs into Christian's, his chest splayed open, his lungs visible, his heart. In med school Sean sat in on a few autopsies, mostly on victims of car crashes. Their faces were covered when the students were there, to keep the students from humanizing the corpses. Sean had been angry and was vocal about it, arguing that no good bedside manner could be administered by a doctor who was taught to not think of his patients as people. Christian had disagreed, saying, "For fuck's sake, Sean, I don't need someone to teach me the difference between a cheerleader and a cadaver."

A woman in one of those autopsies had a laceration on her throat, just like Christian.

*

Sean sits on his couch in his bathrobe, a glass of Scotch and water melting onto the table in front of him. He calls Julia.

"I wish I didn't know," he tells her. He didn't say hello, barely waited for her to even pick up the phone before he started to talk. "I wish I had no idea what an autopsy looks like because I keep seeing it in my head. I mean, I can't even sleep, Julia."

"You know what Detective McGraw told us, Sean. They have to do it. Autopsies are mandatory in cases like Christian's." Julia is talking to him in what Matty calls her wounded animal voice. Sean supposes he should just be grateful she's not flushing him down the toilet.

"How are you feeling today?" she asks him. "Are you dressed?"

"Of course," he lies. "Listen, I'm sorry I keep calling you so much. I guess I'm just a little lost without Christian."

When she speaks, Julia sounds far away and a little like she hasn't really heard what Sean's been saying. "That's good, Sean, I'm glad you put some clothes on because Annie's worried about you."

"Annie? Annie is? Well, you tell Annie I'm fine."

"She said you weren't dressed when she came over the other day." It's possible Julia has started to cry. "She was scared by that, Sean. You know, you can't let yourself just fall apart. You have to keep thinking about our children."

Sean reaches for his Scotch and empties the glass in one big swallow. "My best friend was murdered, Julia. It would be nice if you could cut me a little slack."

"Yeah? Well, how do you think poor Matt feels? He just lost his father!"

Sean kicks the table in front of him, hard enough for it to topple and slide across the room, broken glass and splintered wood in a heap on the floor. "I am Matt's father! Goddamn it! Goddamn you, Julia. Only you would use the death of the only person I've ever loved as an opportunity to be cruel."

"The only - the only person you've ever loved? Fuck you! Fuck you, Sean." Julia is screaming, crying. Sean is sitting absolutely still. "You know, you accuse me of being in love with Christian, but I really think you would have been happier all these years if he'd been the one you shared your life with. Too bad you weren't just fucking Christian all these years instead of me!" Her voice is a snarl as she hangs up the phone.

In the sudden silence, Sean stares at the broken table. He thinks it's a lousy symbol, a lousy metaphor.

He calls his lawyer. He wants a divorce.

*

Sean formally offers Christian's partnership to Quentin on the afternoon Sean and Julia's separate planes arrive back from the Dominican Republic.

"Second honeymoon?" Quentin asks as he sits in Sean's office, signing the requisite paperwork.

Sean clears his throat. "Quickie divorce."

Quentin grimaces. "Oh, how...awkward."

"No, it's fine." Sean watches across the table as Quentin slashes the line through his 'Q' and crosses his 't' by curling around the end of his 'n'. "The trip was good for me. I think getting away really helped clear my head, gain a fresh perspective."

"That's great. I really hope it did." Quentin slides the contracts to Sean and smiles wide. "May this week be better than the last."

Sean stands and moves to the filing cabinets, begins to put away the papers. "I hope you don't mind that the practice will still be called McNamara/Troy, at least for now."

"Not at all. I understand the gesture, and I respect it. But you'd be mistaken in thinking I'll be happy with it forever."

Sean pushes the drawer closed and feels almost disloyal to Christian when he starts to smile. "No, Quentin, I wouldn't expect you to be."

Quentin moves across the room like a big cat, a lion, and at once he has Sean's chin in his hands, tilting his face towards the light.

"Your cheek has healed remarkably." He's whispering with breath that smells cool, like mint.

Sean locks eyes with Quentin and manages to say nothing more than, "I had an excellent surgeon," before Quentin has him backed against the filing cabinets and is kissing him.

He pushes Quentin away hard, his knuckles a jagged fist against Quentin's sternum. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He licks his lips. They taste of mint.

"I'm sorry," Quentin says, and he seems it, two hands up and stretched out in front of him. "I guess I misread the situation."

Sean's fingers are still clenched. He uncurls them slowly. "I'll say you did."

"I'm sorry," Quentin says again, backing away, moving to the door. He's almost gone when Sean calls his name.

"You want to have dinner with me tonight?"

Quentin looks as surprised as Sean feels. "Yeah?"

Sean nods, he feels himself nodding. "Yeah. Why not? Come by the house around nine and we'll find somewhere to go."

"I'd like that," Quentin says with an open, grateful smile. "But, are you sure?"

"Yes," Sean nods. "I'm sure."

*

He dresses in nearly the same suit he wore to the funeral - same pants, shirt, tie, different jacket - and as he fastens his cufflinks, Sean tries to remember what moved him to ask Quentin Costa on a date. It certainly isn't professional, he tells himself, recalling as he does so all the times he'd admonished Christian for dipping his dick in the company ink. On top of that, Sean's only been divorced a few days. He wasn't in the proper headspace to try to salvage his relationship with Julia, and he's certainly in no shape to be in another one. And he isn't really gay.

He stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror because how bad can it be? The Carver's not standing behind him. He'll be able to get through this night. He even wants to.

Sean hears footsteps in the kitchen, footsteps and a voice that isn't Matt's. "Hello?" the voice calls, and Sean tenses before he realizes it's just Quentin.

"I didn't mean to come barging in like this," Quentin continues as Sean follows the sound of his voice, "but the door was open. You really out to keep that locked, you know."

"You look great," Sean tells him.

Quentin looks comfortable in Sean's kitchen, leaning back against the sink. To his right is a bottle of wine and he gestures to it. "I would have brought flowers, but I wasn't sure which kind you'd prefer."

"That's okay, Quentin. I'm not really a flowers type of guy."

"Really?" Quentin asks, his lips spreading and curling into a smile. "Just what type of guy are you?"

Sean crosses the room and only hesitates for a second there before he slips his hands inside of Quentin's jacket, sliding his fingers over the softness of Quentin's shirt. He places his mouth on the side of Quentin's neck, tests the sharpness of his teeth against Quentin's dark, delicate skin. And suddenly Sean's crying.

He realizes he's been crying for awhile. He realizes he's been crying this whole time.

Quentin pats Sean's back clumsily. "We don't have to do this. I think maybe I should go."

"No. No." Sean pulls back to face Quentin, leaving his hands at Quentin's waist. "I want you to stay. I want," he stops and thinks about Julia, and Christian, and everything Matt must never know about Ava Moore. "I want you to fuck me."

This is the part of the dream where Sean wakes up.

*

He has the dream, Christian's dream, every night after Christian describes it to him. First it's just the funeral, and then it's the funeral and the divorce and the date. And then it's:

Facedown on his bed, Sean thinks, _this is how it must have felt_. Except Christian wasn't expecting it, Christian was paralyzed, Christian was attacked. And that's not the way it is now because this is something Sean wants.

"Relax," Quentin whispers when Sean whimpers; whispers, "Shh." His body is heavy, which makes Sean feel completely, stupidly safe.

"You'll like it." Quentin breathes and moves, moves himself in and out and in. _Is this how it feels for Julia_ , Sean wonders, an ache blooming down his legs and up his back.

Quentin moans, and Sean realizes it's because of him, because of the way he's moving his hips. He presses his face into the sheets and moves his hips again.

"Doesn't that feel good?" Quentin asks, his legs shivering around Sean's. _The answer is no_ , Sean thinks, but instead says, "Yes." He hates this, but he wants to keep doing it. It's not yet over, and already he wants to do it again.

*

Momma Boone is a sweet Southern woman who loves her husband and daughter. She is also morbidly obese. She hasn't left her house in years, and the reason she hasn't left her house in years is because she's stuck to her couch.

Quentin holds her hand during the separation surgery but she doesn't make it. Sean realizes after it's over that there's no way she ever could have made it.

*

Liz corners them at Quentin's new espresso machine to persuade them to take a case she read about in the newspaper, a case of a gorilla with a scar on her cheek and a vocabulary of more words than Annie.

Quentin says yes immediately and launches into a speech Sean thinks he must have practiced for days, about how the publicity will be great for McNamara/Troy & Costa. Sean knows that if Christian were here, he would say no fucking way to the idea of performing reconstructive surgery on a primate, and so Sean tells Liz to make the arrangements. He tells her they'll do it.

*

"Which one of you is Dr. Troy?" the president of the fraternity asks, and Sean clears his throat.

"Dr. Troy has passed away. I'm Dr. McNamara and this is Dr. Costa."

"Oh, wow." The boy flushes pink. "I'm totally sorry. I read about Dr. Troy in the alumni newsletter, that's why I called you guys. But it didn't say anything about - "

"Evidently that newsletter was published several months ago," Quentin interrupts. "We're happy to honor his memory by helping you and your brothers. Lead the way."

The way Quentin says it, the way he sounds so sincere and smooth, makes Sean instantly hard.

The president shows Sean and Quentin the reason they're there, two pledges with their asses glued to the face of a third, and Sean's just about finished cutting them all free when his cell phone rings. He checks his voicemail later and it's the police. They tell him Julia's dead. They tell him it's a suicide.

*

In his waking life, Sean gets a blowjob from a pretty little sorority girl. In his waking life, he tries unsuccessfully to turn back the hands of time on the wife of a man with Alzheimer's disease. In his waking life, Christian and Julia are very much alive.

Things are different in the dream.

In the dream, Sean goes out with Kimber following a day of grueling surgery on the Carver's latest victim, Rhea Reynolds, who, it turns out, was not actually a victim of the Carver at all. It also turns out she suffered horrible complications from the anaesthesia and was actually awake during her entire operation.

Sean isn't sure which act appalls him more.

He agrees to see Kimber because she sent such a nice note after Julia died, and because, when he calls her to ask what she still sees in him, she says, "Baby, we're the only ones left."

They eat, they drink, Kimber talks about maybe taking her implants up another size, Sean does not mention the fact that he might have a boyfriend. There's only one awful, awkward moment, when Kimber asks after Annie and Sean is forced to tell her that Annie is now going to boarding school in Switzerland. "It was in the will," he says bitterly. "Leave it to Julia to fuck me over, even in death."

After dinner, Sean takes Kimber back to her place and lets her fix him a drink. He sits there at her kitchen counter and wonders how many times she and Christian fucked on it. He thinks Kimber's skin would look nice there, next to the pink marble. He keeps looking around the kitchen while she talks to him about her latest movie and how nice it was to be able to write off Brazilians as business expenses, and his eyes settle on the knives.

"Kimber," he asks softly, "what would you do for me?"

For just a moment, her eyes go shiny and wet. "Jesus, Sean, I think I'd do just about anything for you. Especially now."

Sean thinks about Rhea Reynolds, and how much he misses Julia, and how he misses Christian ten times more. "I hope that's true, Kimber," he whispers, and rolls up his sleeve. He hands her the butcher knife, the biggest one in the block, and covers her hand with his, guiding the blade towards the softness of his skin.

"Just like that, okay?" he tells her, and he watches her nod. And he watches blood bloom there in her kitchen.

*

There's a moment when Sean's face is pressed against the wall of his shower when he wonders if Quentin notices the cuts on his forearms, but then Quentin hisses, "Bitch," in Sean's ear and starts fucking him harder, so Sean figures if Quentin has noticed, he must not care.

"I went on a date last night," Sean pants.

"Oh, yeah?" Quentin grunts and moans at the same time. "Anyone I know?"

"My ex-girlfriend," Sean says, "Kimber Henry."

Quentin pushes Sean's head under the spray of the water. "Really? Well, good for you. She's a fine piece of ass."

The absurdity of asking the permission of his business partner/lover to start seeing his porn-star ex isn't lost on Sean, but he asks anyway. "You don't mind?"

"Not at all." Quentin digs his fingernails into Sean's hips. "Just invite me over sometime."

*

Ultimately Sean has to deal with the issue of guilt.

There's a moment, a brief moment after Kit arrests Christian on suspicion of being the Carver, when Sean suddenly can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Because he certainly can't understand a reality that would prompt him to actually believe Christian could be capable of such acts, but then Christian accuses him of believing just that and Sean doesn't deny it. And being presented with what seems like irrefutable evidence that his best friend is the one who sliced his cheek certainly feels like a nightmare to Sean.

He's a doctor, a doctor who spends his days making people's lives better, so it would stand to reason that he should be able to figure out his own life. He's never been able to do that before, but he tries again.

If Christian survived the Carver attack, it means Annie still lives in Miami. It means Matt hates Sean because he found out about Ava and Julia's alive and Sean's quit McNamara/Troy to find himself. If Christian survived the Carver attack, he and Sean aren't really speaking anymore.

If Christian is dead, it means Sean's been sleeping with a man. Annie's gone but Matt and Sean have a pretty good relationship. Julia's dead but Sean's engaged to Kimber. Christian won't be there for the ceremony, of course, but Sean plans to ask the priest to put a rose on the altar in his memory. If Christian is dead, Sean has learned his own strength. Sean even thinks he might be happy.

It's easier to have Christian in his life if Christian can't talk back or make stupid choices. Death allows Sean to remember Christian the way he always wanted Christian to be. He realizes he's killing his best friend, but he feels responsible for Christian's attack anyway. The carving, the rape, the arrest, none of it would have happened if Sean hadn't kept fixing the Carver's work.

Sean feels so guilty. He wants a break.

*

All dressed and standing on the steps of the church in his suit, Sean watches Julia kiss Quentin, then step out of his car and stare after him as he drives away. Detachment is all Sean feels, but he knows he should be jealous and angry, so he forces his features into the appropriate expressions. When he finds Christian and Julia later in yet another romantic clinch, he can hardly force himself to pretend to care.

Kimber's disappearance is the first time Sean's been excited all day. He strides purposefully down the aisle, totally ignoring the bewildered faces of all the guests, keeping his eyes strictly on Christian. And when he reaches the front of the church, Sean lets his fingers graze Christian's arm and whispers, "She's gone," in Christian's ear.

Christian's face is a mask of regret and pain. "What the hell are you talking about, she's gone? What does that mean?"

Sean just shakes his head. "Of course Kimber's not going to marry you, Christian. Did you really think she would? She's already married to me."

The way Christian's mouth opens, then closes, then opens again, has that absurd slow quality only found in dreams. It reminds Sean of the sensation of trying to run with legs that are too heavy to move. All Christian says is, "What?"

Sean knows if he closes his eyes, he'll be sitting on his bed with his dick in his hand, watching his new wife fuck their boyfriend in the ass with a black strap-on.

Sean looks at Christian. Sean closes his eyes.

*

 


End file.
